Letters from India: Voices for peace, prosperity

Tuesday, I postponed filling you in on the politicians we met in Hyderabad. Now, I'm just going to skip right over them. (Essentially, they all say they're the ones who've made a difference for Muslims in the city by their political force and philanthropy. Our acerbic guides took that with a shovel of salt.)

I'd rather tell you about two other groups we met our last day in India. Both are changing life in Hyderabad by focusing on the social and economic fabric, sometimes one thread at a time.

We spent the morning at the Henry Martyn Institute of Islamic Studies - a peaceful oasis on the outskirts of town. Florina Benoit, associate director, who trained at a Mennonite University in Maryland, invited us to share their daily non-denominational devotions and to hear from their staff about their work. This morning a young Catholic, Mayuran, who grew up as a refugee from the war in Sri Lanka, told the group gathered in the circular open-sided pavilion a story of self-sacrifice).After the brutal month-long communal riots in Hyderabad in 1990, the Institute shifted from its original purpose - Christian missionary work. The founders and funders agreed to refocus on an interfaith effort to build a new society. Funding comes from Christian groups in Europe and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The instituted was rededicated to offer post graduate study of Islam for Christian pastors and academics and to programs that foster peacemaking.

The notice board in the modest but attractive complex has items such as a notice about a cricket league in England where Christian clergy and Muslim Imams play each other with Jewish and Hindu umpires. But the work done in Hyderabad and the surround state of Andhra Pradesh is not fun and games. HMI's approach is community development through craft workshops for women, a small school for children and night classes in mechanics for young men - all mixing Muslims and Hindu who might otherwise never share time together.

"One thousand people have said "No" to violence," Benoit said proudly.

Seems like a drop in the bucket and yet, as I would learn later in Indonesia, these kinds of small heroic efforts are spreading across Asia.

But before leaving India, we met with people who are part of a change that's touched one million Indians.

We had lunch with a dozen men - yeah, all men - who lead the America India Chamber of Commerce. These are the owners or directors of India operations for U.S. based high tech companies. All have spent years in the USA working their way up the IT industry ladder before returning to India and setting up 24/7 operations in the new Cyberabad.

(Wouldn't you like to report to work in at a "pearl?"). The IT industry is revolutionizing the economy of Hyderabad, paying young college grads immense salaries and fueling growth in all kinds of services and a boom in the housing market.

They say they are "agnostic" about talent -- male or female, Muslim or Hindu, they don't care if they can do the job. They've organized their schedules to accommodate Muslim's holy month of Ramadan, the Hindu festival of Dewali and Christmas, too. Tareq Rahman, a Muslim whose wife, he says, wears hijab (a headscarf), reorganized his company's health insurance to allow women to cover not only their parents but their in-laws "because when a woman marries, she belongs to the man's family.

But business is business, they say and they strongly oppose "reservations" - essentially quotas for religious groups - which politicians say should be imposed on private industry to ensure spots for the Muslim minority. The businessmen say the answer lies in better education and they cited adopt-a-school programs and employees donating their own time to tutor children. They'd like to see more English taught in all the schools as well.

Still, even as they fervently believe that increased prosperity, shared by all, is the path to communal harmony, they clearly realize that the high tech industry affects "only" one million people who are directly employed and another six to eight million people touched by the ripples of the IT workers' salaries. "It's a drop in the bucket of 800 million people," says Madhav Patwardham, of Market Tools Research.

"We're trying to marry two cultures into one seamless work environment customized for India," says Balachaner Vasireddi, general manager for India Operations for USi.

I wish we'd flown off with visions of peace and prosperity in our heads but the last stop of the day before our red-eye flight to Jakarta, Indonesia, was a wearying gathering with about 20 supposedly aspiring journalists. Mostly, they were young men who wanted to hammer Americans about Iraq and oil in one breath and ask advice for getting visas in the next. When I asked my now-standard question of how they view Muslim-on-Muslim violence, they fall silent.

Now, we're about to plunge into the politics and strife within the world's most populous Muslim nation. More from Jakarta once I catch up on some sleep!(But I did want to share this marvelous portrait of some unnamed Sultan who glowered down on us as we lunched at a restaurant jammed with antiques.)

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About Cathy Lynn Grossman

Cathy Lynn Grossman is too fidgety to meditate. But talking about visions and values, faith and ethics lights her up. Join in at Faith & Reason. More about Cathy.